to verify and fulfil that hope. I promise
you that I bring to the work a sincere heart. Whether I will bring a head
equal to that heart will be for future times to determine. It were useless
for me to speak of details of plans now; I shall speak officially next
Monday week, if ever. If I should not speak then, it were useless for me
to do so now. If I do speak then, it is useless for me to do so now. When
I do speak, I shall take such ground as I deem best calculated to restore
peace, harmony, and prosperity to the country, and tend to the perpetuity
of the nation and the liberty of these States and these people. Your
worthy mayor has expressed the wish, in which I join with him, that it
were convenient for me to remain in your city long enough to consult your
merchants and manufacturers; or, as it were, to listen to those breathings
rising within the consecrated walls wherein the Constitution of the United
States and, I will add, the Declaration of Independence, were originally
framed and adopted. I assure you and your mayor that I had hoped on this
occasion, and upon all occasions during my life, that I shall do nothing
inconsistent with the teachings of these holy and most sacred walls. I
have never asked anything that does not breathe from those walls. All my
political warfare has been in favor of the teachings that come forth from
these sacred walls. May my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth if ever I prove false to those teachings.
Fellow-citizens, I have addressed you longer than I expected to do, and
now allow me to bid you goodnight.

ADDRESS IN THE HALL OF INDEPENDENCE, PHILADELPHIA,

FEBRUARY 22, 1861

MR. CUYLER:--I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing
here, in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the
devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which
we live. You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of
restoring peace to the present distracted condition of the country. I can
say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have
been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments
which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never
had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied
in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers
which were incurred by the men who assembled here an